Cardiovascular diseases are one of the primary causes of death in industrialized countries. Examples of cardiovascular diseases include coronary artery disease, peripheral artery disease, heart attack, and stroke. Atherosclerosis is one of the underlying causes of cardiovascular diseases, and essentially is the accumulation of plaque on the interior walls of arteries. Plaque deposits consist of white blood cells, calcium, cholesterol, and other connective tissues. The accumulation of plaque results in a hardening of the arterial walls, as well as a narrowing of the interior of the arteries, resulting in a decrease, or even total occlusion, of blood flow through the arteries.
There are many different theories as to the cause of atherosclerosis, including elevated levels of cholesterol, inflammation and damage to arterial walls, or genetic predisposition. Treatment of atherosclerosis generally consists of changes in diet and exercise, the use of medications such as statins to reduce cholesterol levels, or surgery, such as angioplasty or bypass surgery. Medications, such as statins, and treatment involving behavioral and dietary changes primarily seek to prevent plaque accumulation, but may not help to reduce atherosclerosis once it has developed. In addition, surgical treatments effect only physical changes, such as compressing plaque deposits to open up occluded arteries in the case of angioplasty, or grafting a vein from elsewhere in the body to completely circumvent the occluded artery in the case of bypass surgery, and may not actually improve the atherosclerosis, or reduce the amount of plaque present in the body. Thus, there exists a need for a method of reducing atherosclerotic plaque in patients who have already developed atherosclerosis.